Unifit Pingi Rechargeable Shoe Dryer
Product Review & Walking Gear Test
Rechargeable Shoe Dryer Vital Statistics: Sizes: SRP: |
Features to Note:
- Shoe dehumidifier with electrical recharger
- Absorbent: Silica
- Absorption capacity: 2 x 52mls
- Recharger suitable for use with AC 100-240V
- Made in Taiwan
In-use Test:
The Pingi Shoe dryer is a silicon gel based de-humidifier which can be re-generated when saturated by using an electrical re-charger. There is a small dial on the back of the 'shoe-tree' that changes colour to show the gel is fully saturated (pink) and needs to be regenerated. The regeneration of the crystal system is finished when the dial is showing blue - and the dryer is ready for use.
The manufacturer suggests that the initial charge up should take about 12 hours. On my first attempt, this seemed to take quite a lot longer - in fact I didn't see any significant colour change on the indicator dial. I put this down to the fact that there was a lot of humidity in the general atmosphere at the time - and tried again. Second time around I oriented the shoe-tree differently in the charger so there was less chance that its weight would pull it out from the connection. The dryer did appear to warm up slightly and there was a colour change this time - to a hue mid way between the pink and the blue - but even after some 36 hours it had still not reached the full intensive blue colour shown on the manufacturer's instructions.
I then tried the dryer in some extremely wet walking boots plus a much less wet pair of trainers. I used a dryer in one of each pair of shoes so I could compare the drying effect of the Pingi with the drying effect in just air for both the boots and the trainers.
Rather disappointingly, it was difficult to see any difference in either the walking boots or trainers between the shoe with the Pingi compared to the one without. Granted this may have been because the dryer was not completely re-charged. However they had been 'on-charge' significantly longer than the recommended time. - and way longer than makes them a really practical option if you need to dry boots each night say over a walking weekend.
Whilst useful as a flexible shoe tree, the Pingi shoe dryer did not impress in our test.
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